Rise & Brine

Salty craft town Portland, Maine, has a history of reinvention.

- Alex Oliveira

A WALK DOWN the streets of Portland, Maine, can be quietly disorienting. The city’s facades slide by in unbroken lines of red brick; paved streets become cobbled then paved again; storefront windows are free from national chains, yet the local businesses bustle with activity. It feels like a time before Sears-Roebuck catalogs and national franchises, before steel and concrete, but with the cars and clothes of 2018. How could such a quaint yet vibrant American town exist anywhere but on the set of “The Truman Show”? The story of how Portland has maintained this bygone energy, an alternate reality of American urbanism, starts at the front doors of City Hall. The main entrance of Portland’s City Hall is framed by a set of gilded iron gates. Above the door and contrasting starkly against the black of the iron is a polished gold rendering of Portland’s crest: a shield depicting a ship under sail, with a large bird at full wingspan perched atop. Contrary to classic Americana, the bird is not an eagle on the edge of flight, but rather a phoenix freshly risen from its own ashes; beneath the crest is the word RESURGAM: Latin for “I will rise again.”